Area intrusion detection based on ad-hoc wireless sensor networks requires the use of energy demanding and relatively costly sensors for their operation. Reliable accurate sensors with low sensitivity to environmental changes are both costly and power demanding. These limitations render such networks unsuitable for use in area (perimeter or border) intrusion detection applications where low cost, extended sensing range and power autonomy are three of the most important requirements driving the design of the system. Such conflicting performance and cost requirements frequently lead to compromises in the design of wireless sensor networks.
New designs for lower cost sensors appear continuously in the market. However, in an attempt to reduce production cost, greater demand is being imposed on the processing unit of the wireless nodes of the network. This increased demand increases energy consumption by the nodes which, in turn, negatively impacts energy autonomy of the system. Attempts have been made to increase the range of the sensors from a few feet to ten feet or greater. However, the increased cost and complexity of the enhanced sensors rendered them unsuitable for wireless network area intrusion detection application. More complex software algorithms were developed to produce energy efficient wireless networks for the purpose of maximizing the autonomy of wireless network intrusion detection systems. The majority of these attempts focused on producing efficient routing algorithms for the purpose of minimizing the average transmission time of the wireless nodes of the sensor networks, thus reducing their energy consumption. However, this required the use of an increased number of higher power processing units.